UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Ima Matul, trafficked from Indonesia to the U.S. at age 17, was exploited for three years before she reached out to a neighbor for help and refuge. Vanessa Lanza, Director of Partnerships for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), has said that this form of modern-day slavery continues to happen in our own backyards—many of us unaware of its existence. To raise the profile on this serious and very much ongoing practice, the Iris Cantor–UCLA Women’s Health Education and Resource Center, CAST, and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women cosponsored “Trends in Exploitation: Labor Trafficking and Organ Trafficking,” a conference on October 20, 2011 at UCLA. Janet Pregler, M.D., Director of the Iris Cantor–UCLA Women’s Health Center, introduced the conference by discussing the methods of deception and coercion used to exploit those living in poverty.